


Arms

by 105NorthTower



Category: Cormoran Strike Series - Robert Galbraith
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-19 06:47:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29746575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/105NorthTower/pseuds/105NorthTower
Summary: A short piece about Robin's arms.Alludes to rape, violence and self-harm. Not graphic, but please don't read if in doubt.
Relationships: Matthew Cunliffe/Robin Ellacott, Robin Ellacott/Cormoran Strike
Comments: 5
Kudos: 40





	Arms

Her arms were long and pale against the grimy floor. As he pinned her with his weight and enjoyed the vacancy of her gaze, he noticed her summer dress cutting into the soft flesh near her shoulder. They would find a mark there, when they found her body.

Her arms tensed as she made a fist and the veins of her wrists twitched in anticipation. The blade was obscenely sharp; she had cut her finger freeing it from the razor. She must hold her nerve. Now was the time. It had to be now. "Robin! We're back. Where are you? Do you want tea?"

Her arms, the instructor noticed, were consistently in a perfect ten-to-two position when driving forward and executed turns using the recommended push/pull method, never passing six and twelve, and bent at approximately 100° at the elbow. This enabled him to award a pass for that section of the course and proceed to assessment of her reaction times in response to a series of standard hazards.

Her arms were laden with the contents of the third suitcase: trousers, dresses, a few jackets. He knew she had her initial assessment at the temping agency tomorrow, and needed to unpack and sort out what she would wear. But that could wait until after dinner. He took the offending items and tossed them on the couch, ignoring her weak protests. He had other plans for the afternoon.

Her arms were thrown wide, grasping at air. They would not save her. She would plummet down the spiral of iron and concrete, unless other arms reached out.

Her arms didn't hurt at first, but then they ached from the fight. The ambulance came, and only then did her left forearm begin to throb and sting. Only then did she realise the knife had caught her. At the hospital, he came first, to hear how she'd survived, before the doctors stitched her skin and her fiancée's anger drove him out.

Her arms circled his neck, and she pressed herself into his battered body, hoping he could tell, by her touch, that she wanted to be other than how she appeared, that she needed something more than what she seemed to accept. For a moment, as his arms tightened around her, she thought she almost heard him say, come with me.

Her arms were leaden. Her last breath wouldn't leave her throat and threatened to suffocate her as the eye of his gun loomed in her vision, the only thing in focus in a sea of confusion and chaos. Muffled sounds without sense or meaning echoed around her, and unseen arms pulled her towards a black pool where consciousness and reason were absent, where she half wanted to be, forever free of the press of her anxiety. 

Her arms slipped through the soft fabric of the blue dress and she fastened the opal necklace at her throat. She gathered her belongings together, and nudged the nose of her balloon donkey, which bobbed its head as if in farewell, as she left to meet her unacknowledged love.

Her arms and his lay parallel in the cool morning light. She raised her hand and stroked his coarse black hair, revelling in the familiar yet unfamiliar, grasping for a future that now seemed within reach, inside his arms.


End file.
